Collins and Turner can get the Sixers back on Track

It takes alot to build excitement for an NBA team coming off a 27 win season, but the Sixers are doing their best to repair the damage inflicted on this fanbase after the debacle put on the Wachovia Center.

From the top to the bottom, it was a brutal campaign for the Philadelphia 76ers. It started off well enough a year ago with a logo redesign reminding us of a simpler and better time for the franchise, it reminded us of Doctor J and Moses Malone and now we had Eddie Jordan, yikes.

It's not a secret that I wasn't a big fan of Eddie Jordan and it's easy to track the steep descent by this team last year directly to him. Jordan was the worst possible selection for this team and made it worse was that he was a personal pick by GM and friend Ed Stefanski.

It's tough to decipher just how much damage Jordan caused because it's easy to tie the bad record to him but he was responsible for so much more. He ruined the confidence of the team and couldn't instill the discipline that a team as young as the Sixers needs and thus his hands off approach splintered the locker room between players who followed the rules and the ones who didn't.

Jordan spent an entire season messing with the heads of his players and implementing rotations that had everyone wondering what was going on. Jordan openly criticized players following losses and wouldn't play $80 million dollar forward Elton Brand for long stretches at a time. 

Jordan was finally fired on April 14th and the Sixers were once again in the market for a new coach which will be their seventh coach in as many years.

The Sixers then decided on 58-year-old Doug Collins to be the 23rd coach in franchise history. Collins is a guy who is more famous for his color commentary than he is for his NBA coaching career.

I wasn't an immediate fan of the Collins hiring at first, but with each passing day I became more and more impressed with the former TNT analyst.

Whether it was taking a shot at his predecessor at his introductory press conference,

"Every year that I’ve coached, I’ve run almost different system because I’ve never had the same team. That’s what coaches have to do. They have to adjust and play to their different personnel," Collins said.

Or how genuinely excited about being back in Philadelphia and promoting competition and giving Andre Iguodala, a much needed confidence boost by realizing that he was probably affected the most by Jordan's turbulent season.

Collins went to Iguodala and told him what he can do to get this team back to the playoffs and he didn't do it by blowing smoke, he gave him working points.

He told Iguodala to become an All-NBA defender, try out for the national team since many of last summer's players won't be involved this time around because of contract negotiations. Make the Team USA roster and watch his game improve and then he'll enter the season ready to play like an all-star. And if he plays like an all-star, then this team will have a real shot of making the playoffs. Now that's motivation that Jordan failed to infuse at any point last season.

But Collins' biggest move as Sixers coach will be his handling of #2 pick Evan Turner, as it is pretty obvious that the hopes of the city dying for good basketball lie on a back court of the 21-year-old National Player of the Year and the 20-year-old point guard, Jrue Holiday. It's a big reason why there's a little buzz in the city for the Sixers again and if Collins handles those two and Iguodala the way I expect him to, Philadelphia could be a relevant basketball town again really soon.

Welcome to Toronto...

The Toronto Blue Jays were the home team on Friday, but the crowd didn't make them feel that way.

The Phillies (39-32) won their fourth game in a row last night beating the Toronto Blue Jays 9-0. Philadelphia's offense continues to roll and Roy Halladay looked like himself while shutting down his former team in seven scoreless innings.

This was the long-awaited first "road" series for the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. It was a odd night as the Phillies batted first, wore the road grays and took batting practice last. The Blue Jays had promotional videos playing on the big scoreboard, had their own entrance music and first the first time in a National League park, there was a DH.

There were even some Canadian mounties on hand, albeit fake ones, to perform during the seventh inning stretch.

The strange nature of the game Friday night didn't affect Roy Halladay who was able to get back on track following a personal three game losing streak. Halladay was trying to avoid a career-worst four start losing streak.

Haladay (9-6) in going seven scoreless innings last night only allowed six hits and struck out four. He is now 2-3 in five starts since his perfect game against the Marlins on May 29th.

The Phillies seemed to have weathered what could have been a stretch of baseball that could have buried them, as they have gone 8-3 in their last eleven games after going 5-14 in their previous 19 games. Philadelphia was able to make up three games inside the division in the past week, now sitting 2.5 games out of first place in the NL East.

The bizarre road series for the Phillies continues this afternoon at Citizens Bank Park when Philadelphia will look for their fifth straight win in a row.

Cole Hamels will take the mound today and is coming off a good performance where after allowing three runs in the first inning vs. the Minnesota Twins, he settled down to go seven innings and was in line for a victory. Hamels is 6-5 on the season with an ERA of 3.75.